Doug Sipp Lies Again

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Doug Sipp is currently employed at RIKEN institute and views himself as a 'watch dog' for the Stem Cell Therapy business. Unfortunately, he is also employed by RIKEN, a business that is a direct competitor with others business who work in the area of stem cell therapy and research.

Countless people have already noted that Doug is a fraud with absolutely no background whatsoever related to any science -- much less the science of Stem Cell therapy. As a matter of fact, his primary life accomplishments revolve around his jobs as a truck driver, a software developer, a freelance translator for Nature magazine and his current position as a manager at RIKEN Institute in Japan. I should also add that he has a very strong educational background represented by his undergraduate degree in English.

So why would a large organizations such as Japan's RIKEN institute hire him? For one purpose only: print as many blogs and articles as possible lying about RIKEN's competitors (see http://sctmonitored.blogspot.com/).

Interestingly enough, even though he worked as a translator for Nature magazine and did an interview with them where he made up the most creative stories about RIKEN's competitors, even Nature magazine just came out with an editorial on February 6, 2013. You can view that editorial at: http://www.nature.com/news/unknown-territory-1.12360. I have also included the entire editorial at the end of this blog.

Suffice it to say that Sipp's primary allegation against stem cell therapy companies (except, of course, RIKEN) is that they are 'dangerous and under regulated'. This accusation has been proven false several times but now we find out that the most 'dangerous and unregulated' stem cell therapies are out of Japan -- and RIKEN is the largest.

Some day Doug Sipp and his employer will stop the lying but, until then, take a look at this editorial from Nature:

Unknown territory

Japan is making an overdue effort to regulate experimental stem-cell treatments. A clearly defined legal framework is needed to protect patients.

06 February 2013

Millions of tourists flock to Japan each year to enjoy its rich cultural and historical heritage. But some visitors are shunning the usual tourist trail in favour of another attraction — experimental stem-cell treatments. In late December, the Japanese newspaper The Mainichi reported that a clinic in the Hakata district of Fukuoka in southwest Japan, which has links to the Seoul-based biotechnology firm RNL Bio, has been treating some 500 South Koreans a month with stem cells. Another report late last month in the Asahi Shimbun newspaper claimed to have found more than 20 clinics that advertise unproven stem-cell treatments in the country.

Some of the countries in which stem-cell tourism has taken off have immature regulatory systems, including China, Costa Rica and Ukraine. But why Japan?

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For starters, Japan’s regulations on stem-cell therapies are not just immature — they simply do not exist. Combine that with the nation’s reputation for cleanliness and reliability, and Japan becomes the perfect place to give a veneer of legitimacy to an unproven therapy. The country is a “paradise for premature therapies” according to one article in the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper. Japan’s health ministry has been slow to respond, but is now beginning to move on the issue.
Last week, a ministry subcommittee posted online some of its initial ideas for a new law to oversee the clinical use of stem cells. A final draft will be prepared this month for presentation to Japan’s parliament in its upcoming session. Details remain fuzzy, but the document includes significant proposals, such as a requirement that stem-cell therapies be approved through clinical trials, that they take place only in registered and approved facilities and that providers set up ways to compensate their patients if things go wrong.
The introduction of such clearly defined rules and regulations, in contrast to Japan’s usual preference for soft guidelines, is a positive and welcome step. Such guidance will be particularly helpful to local government officials, such as those in Fukuoka, who are reportedly stumped as to what to do about the stem-cell tourism there.
The problem is that the regulations with teeth will probably apply to only one of three classes of stem-cell treatment: that deemed the most risky, including procedures based on embryonic stem cells or induced pluripotent stem cells, the risks of which are unknown.

“Self-monitoring by clinics is problematic in the business of stem-cell therapy.”

The other two categories are not yet well defined by the guidelines, but are likely to include therapies that are generally accepted and considered safe, as well as those that carry some degree of predictable risk. According to a government representative, a clinic that used these other classes would need only to get the approval of a local institutional review board and then notify the government that it is opening for stem-cell business. There would be no active monitoring by the government. The type of stem-cell treatment offered by RNL Bio — in which stem cells are extracted from a person’s fat tissue and then expanded in the laboratory — would fall into one of these more loosely regulated categories, it seems. What, then, would prevent RNL Bio or other companies from exploiting Japan’s laxity, possibly to the detriment of patients?
Self-monitoring by clinics has already been exposed as problematic in the business of stem-cell therapy. The United States has a formidable regulatory system, but it is far from a shining example of how to oversee this emerging field. The state of Texas recently put into place regulations that opened up the industry to any company that could pass inspection by local review boards, only to find that the review board that approved the state’s highest profile stem-cell company had failed in its duties. The US Food and Drug Administration eventually got around to cracking down.
Regulators everywhere have a difficult job. Desperate patients, looking for any opportunity to try a therapy that could help them, feel deprived of their rights. And some companies complain — with some justification — that overly burdensome regulations are killing the development of promising therapies. Japan should learn from the situation in the United States and elsewhere. It must take care to look at potential loopholes in its laws that could allow unproven therapies on the market and put patients in danger.

Bottom line:

1. RIKEN's business in stem cell research and therapy is largely unregulated;
2. Their low level hire, Doug Sipp, appears to be primarily responsible for trying to degrade the competition since he obviously has absolutely no background in any of the RIKEN businesses;
3. Either RIKEN needs to remove Doug Sipp from their organization in order to stop the lies and mud-slinging and clean up its own shop first or face the judgement of unbiased courts that will impact both RIKEN and Doug Sipp -- both will continue to be sued.